Laser Lad - 40th Invercargill Cup winner

Bruce Stewart Journalist

Laser Lad (Noodlum) trained by Peter Jones, won the first of his two Invercargill Cups in October 1986 when as a four year old he took out the 40th running of the Southland harness racing feature.

Laser Lad was bred by Robert Cameron who sold him for $30,000 as an early two year old to Invercargill car salesman Graham Calderwood.

Laser Lad had three starts for Bob Beck and one for Hori Lee before Jones took over his training.

Owned by Calderwood, Blair Vickery, Bill Crawford and Kevin English, Laser Lad was sent out favourite for the 1986 Cup.

After getting checked at the start by Gentle Sir and losing ten metres, Jones settled the gelding five back before tracking Chipaluck into the race. He then proceeded to gather in the pacemaker Rolls Hanover, to win by half a neck with Andronicus a nose back in third.

The winning time for the 2700 metres was 3-30.4.

“This horse has only had nineteen starts, is relatively inexperienced and is still maturing,” Jones told Southland Times reporter Don Wright after the run.

Bill Crawford, Kevin English and The Invercargill Cup with owners Bill Crawford, Kevin English and Blair Vickery with Robin Watson General Manager of the Southland Times

The $20,000 Southland Times Invercargill Cup that year was for pacers ranked C6-C9 with the winner banking $11,000.

From a betting perspective, on ten races the tote handled $284,671 on course and $580,344 off course. The on-course turnover was a new Southland record for either trotting or galloping codes.

Invercargill Cup Day at Ascot Park in 1986 (Southland Times)

Other winners on the day were: Super Roux (Clark Barron), Yankee Gordon (Ali Malcolmson), Par Match (Henry Skinner), Belvedere (Doug McNaught), Ono’s Pride (Alex Milne), Caragh’s Bret (Kirk Larsen), Sir Chris (Gordon Lee), Carol Arden (Maurice Kerr) and Miss Whippy (Hamish Hunter).

Laser Lad’s career record was 89-15-7-12 and $344,123. His major wins were the Northern Derby, the Christchurch Airport Travelodge FFA and the Invercargill Cup (2).